Show Appreciation

When you show appreciation, you’re doing God’s work! We think wonderful things about people but we don’t tell them. Appreciation only works when you express it! A psychologist interviewed the son of a successful business tycoon. The boy had refused to take over the family business after his dad’s death, even though it would have made him very rich. The boy explained: ‘You don’t understand the relationship I had with my father. He was a driven man who came up the hard way. His objective was to teach me self-reliance, and he thought the best way to do it was never to encourage or praise me. Every day we played ball in the yard. The idea was for me to catch the ball ten straight times. I’d catch it eight or nine times, but always on the tenth throw he’d do everything possible to make me miss it. He’d throw it on the ground or over my head so I’d no chance of catching it.’ Then he paused tearfully and said, ‘That’s why I have to get away; I want to catch that tenth ball!’ This young man grew up feeling he could never be good enough to please his father. Sound familiar?

The Bible says, ‘Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad’ (Proverbs 12:25 NKJV). So, show appreciation.